I have had a few meetings with a few different yellow pages people. I'm not really interested in placing an ad, but I feel like I need to at least be listed.

My problem is that there are so many directories in this area that I do not have time to sit down with every sales rep in order to accomplish this.

Is there a better way of going about this?

Try to find out which is the most widely used publication.Get a small ad for the first year (it's cheaper) then just go for a regular listing after that initial shock.

We have a deal set up by our franchisor with Saxton-Ferris and they handle all our phone books. They also charge us the same rates as if we went directly to the books (They get discounted rates, sort of like travel agents and plane tickets). They also discount us 5% for full payment or we can pay monthly at regular price. It's nice because we only have to deal with one rep, only have to submit artwork to one place, etc.

Thanks. I will check them out. There are so many phone books in my covered area that its impossible to meet all the reps. I'd never get any glass work done.

AGN, pick the best book for closest to ya, start small and build as you can afford. Also pay in full if possible when book comes out, ya get a good discount, and you don't have the monthly burdens, there will be way too many of those!

Going broke, good to see a Novus guy out here, welcome to the forum,,,, I used to be, got out when the skidmores took over, moved to rural area, best thing I could of ever done, never looked back,, and it's been real goooood!

Maybe thats what I'll do! I'll move to the sticks where theres only one glass shop in town and clean up. There are a few places like that around here.

How small, I am at 2000 with 10,000 in the county and at least 6 windshild installers, some clue-less about what thwy are doing, but it cuts into the mark-up.

AGN our first year in biz we ran a one line ad in SBC (now AT&T) it was FREE and the only reason we done that is some of our distributors required we have at least one book listing to be considered a biz. Also we still receive a mess load of calls from our FREE one line ad .We also ran little $26 ads in the buyers ad paper and thrifty nickel our first year we spent just under $500 in advertisements and that included flyer's ,shirts hats and pads .We also ran over 100 FREE online ads but that takes a lot of time to keep them all updated.

Thrify nickel is a grat idea! We have a few papers like that around. I'm going to look into that first thing Monday. Thanks!

AGN

I know you have only been open for business a month, what is working for you. How many jobs have you done?

Actually I haven't been going that long. Its taken time to get my stuff set-up and my new tools in working order. I'm just now starting to make sales calls and I'm waiting on my promo items to come in. I have received some positive feedback from going around meeting people, but its pretty slow. I've barely touched the tip of the iceberg though.

First look in all those books, see what you competition is doing. Then your total budget for yp. Don't for get about the on line directorys. Meet with the less annoying of the reps, make the ad, when you get the e-mailed pdf, forward to the next book, so they can change a little something to use it. Once you get the Directory art department to do your ad, you can deal with the others through e-mail, and fax. If you just do a listing, make sure you do some thing in the on- line directory.
I am in seven books, and three on line for 07.